The invention relates to a multiprocessor control, and in particular, to the control of similar hardware devices using common software and interchangeable control boards.
For further information relating to this application, reference is made to the following companion U.S. patent applications filed concurrently herewith to the common assignee U.S. Ser. No. 420,965, Remote Process Crash Recovery; U.S. Ser. No. 420,988, Process Scheduler in an Electronic Control; U.S. Ser. No. 420,991, Distributed Processing Environment Fault Isolation; U.S. Ser. No. 420,993 (now U.S. Pat. 4,475,156) Virtual Machine Control; U.S. Ser. No. 420,994, Task Control Manager; U.S. Ser. No. 420,995 (now U.S. Pat. No. 4,521,847), Control System Job Recovery After a Malfunction; U.S. Ser. No. 420,999, Separate Resetting of Processors in a Multiprocessor Control; U.S. Ser. No. 421,006 (now U.S. Pat. No. 4,550,382), Filtered Inputs; U.S. Ser. No. 421,007, Multiprocessor Control Synchronization and Instruction Downloading; U.S. Ser. No. 421,008, Multiprocessor Memory Map; U.S. Ser. No. 421,009, Changing Portions of Control in a ROM Based System; U.S. Ser. No. 421,010 (now U.S. Pat. No. 4,543,584), Race Control Suspension; U.S. Ser. No. 421,011 (now U.S. Pat. No. 4,514,846), Control Fault Detection for Machine Recovery and Diagnostics Prior to Malfunction; U.S. Ser. No. 421,016, Single Point Microprocessor Reset; and U.S. Ser. No. 421,615, Control Crash Diagnostics.
Often times in controlling machines, it is necessary to control similar or identical devices such as identical sorters in a sorter system. Generally, in the prior art, it is necessary to use separate and distinct control boards for each of the devices. Depending upon the number of devices such as sorters used, it is necessary to interact the control of each of the discrete sorters with the overall machine control. It is also necessary to maintain and supply separate control boards for each of the discrete sorters.
It would be desirable, therefore, to provide an interchangeable control board that can be used with any of a plurality of discrete devices and that is easily accommodated with the overall machine control when any number of mechanical elements such as sorters are included in the system.